


The Will of the Force

by cthulhuraejepsen



Category: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-17 01:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5848177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthulhuraejepsen/pseuds/cthulhuraejepsen





	The Will of the Force

"What does the Force want?" asked Nissa.

"Want, padawan?" asked Master Loo. He turned his head towards her, with his chin tendrils trailing in the low gravity behind him.

"So, the Force is a binding, metaphysical, and ubiquitous power," replied Nissa.

"You're repeating the words from a textbook," Loo. "I fear that shows a lack of understanding. In your own words, please."

"The Force is energy, which can be tapped by people who feel the Force in order to accomplish ... things." Nissa knew that was a lame finish, but she was only ten years old, and hoped that Loo would cut her some slack.

"And you wish to know what the Force wants?" asked Loo. He stroked his chin tendrils carefully with his foreclaws. "Why should the Force want anything at all?"

"Well, the Force responds to the will of the user, if that will is directed in certain ways," said Nissa. "If you're in a certain state of mind, you can use telekinesis or telepathy. That makes sense to me, just like how it's easy to pilot a ship when you're feeling calm, or how it's hard to calm down a cat if you're nervous."

"But that doesn't appear to be what you're talking about, padawan," said Master Loo.

"Well, no," said Nissa. "Because the Force also does other things, like making people randomly bump into each other when they shouldn't have. If two people who aren't looking for each other land on the same planet, they should hardly ever meet each other. But if you look at the history books, which I was doing because you told me to, it seems to happen all the time."

"That's the will of the Force," nodded Master Loo. He intertwined his claws with a clacking sound.

"Right!" said Nissa. "So the Force has a will. But what is that will? To what end? What does the Force want? When the Force makes two people bump into each other, it's not doing it because those people wanted to be together, or not just that, it's doing it because it has some purpose in mind. But what purpose is that? What's the direction of that will?"

"Ah," said Master Loo. "That is a question."

Nissa waited for him to say more, but he did not. "What's the answer then?"

"I'm thinking," said Master Loo.

"So you don't know the answer?" she asked. "This isn't one of those things that the Jedi scholars have been going back and forth on for thousands of years?" She seemed to run into those questions a lot, much to the bemusement of Master Loo.

"To my knowledge, it is not," said Master Loo.

"It seems like an obvious question," said Nissa.

"It does," admitted Master Loo. "However, the idea of the Force having a definitive directional will represents something of a problem, a quite obvious one. Can you see it, padawan?"

"We wouldn't be able to distinguish the will of the Force from actual coincidence," said Nissa. "Unless everything is the will of the Force, which I'm not sure would make sense either."

"No, that's not what I was thinking," said Master Loo. He stroked at his chin tendrils again. "I was thinking that the Force has two sides to it, a Light Side and a Dark Side. Why should they act with one will? What would that mean? Or if the two sides to the Force were acting in opposition ... it strains my understanding. Yet there is a further problem that I've just now turned my mind to. Why isn't this one of the things the Jedi scholars have been debating for thousands of years? It seems such an obvious question, what the Force is trying to accomplish, the direction of these significant coincidences that were manufactured by a greater power, yet in all my studies I have seen nothing. If the Jedi have not happened on the mere question, let alone the answer, why haven't they?"

Nissa shrugged. "Maybe it's the will of the Force to not have people thinking about the will of the Force."

Master Loo blanched. "And yet you have happened upon it, and by proxy, I have as well." He stood suddenly and stretched his three legs out. "I must speak with others on this topic. If what you just said is right, the knowledge might be dangerous. The Force is more powerful than we could possibly imagine. If we are now directed against it, if it wishes this knowledge to be kept secret ... it is troubling that we have been allowed to know it now, when so many others have not."

"Maybe that's also the will of the Force?" asked Nissa. "It wants us to be thinking about its will?"

"I fear the other answer," said Master Loo. "Perhaps the Force no longer cares that we know this secret. I don't feel that would bode well for us." He turned to the door, where two of the clone troopers were standing guard. One of them was speaking in a quiet voice to a hologram of the Supreme Chancellor. All Master Loo could make out was the phrase, "Order 66".

Master Loo had intended to ask them to secure the perimeter, but before the words could reach his lips, the clone trooper swung his rifle to the side and fired from the hip. Master Loo didn't have time to reach for his lightsaber, even with the premonition that something had gone terribly wrong. He lived only long enough to see his padawan fall to blaster fire beside him.

That Nissa thought to ask her question mere moments before the near-complete destruction of the Jedi Order might be regarded as mere coincidence.


End file.
